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Holyrood Secondary Library, Book Week Scotland

Book Week Scotland, 16th -22nd November

Pupil review

Here is our first pupil recommendation from Fatima S3, who does superb work helping out in the Library setting up book displays, and helping with crafts for the younger pupils. She is almost half way through this book by wonderful Scottish author Lindsay Littleson.

“I recommend ‘The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean’. I really enjoyed reading it. It talks about summer, family and friends”.

We’ve also been using books to find out about Millport, which is the setting for part of this really exciting story.

We hope that other pupils will read this book, and also the next book by Lindsay Littleson, called ‘The Awkward Autumn of Lily McLean’

Here at Holyrood, Book Week Scotland is one of the highlights of our year ! We can’t wait to get started with celebrating books and reading, and join in the fun with authors, book lovers and the reading community all over Scotland!

We hope to be joining in with some of the online events listed here:

Book Week Scotland programme of events

In addition, we will be reading, sharing books, and holding our own celebration events all week:

How many Scottish authors and books set in Scotland can we read? There may also be some pupil book reviews!

Competition for S1 – design your own mini-book on a Scottish theme Collect an instruction sheet from the Library…. easy and fun! All entries will be displayed in the Library and you could win a prize.
Senior pupils will be reading stories from this anthology of writing about the ‘Future’. You can collect your free copy from the Library. Happy reading!

We will be sharing some of our work in pictures and writing all through the week, and hope that as many pupils and staff as possible will join us to celebrate Book Week Scotland

Holyrood Secondary #LibrariesWeek

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To celebrate #LibrariesWeek 6th-10th October, this blog has been written by one of our most enthusiastic and book – loving classes: Miss Belton’s S3 English Class, who are pleased to share their book recommendations with you.

Jared “My favourite book is The Avatar. As it was the only book in this series in the library, I also had to borrow other books. The library is fun because most of the books are fun to read, and this makes your reading better. I hope that you will try to read more too”.

Fantastic advice, thank you Jared.

Sawdah is one of our most enthusiastic readers and it is always great to see her in the Library. “My favourites include Cry Baby, the Story of Tracy Beaker, and the Dockside series, because there are so many titles in the series to read!”

Abdou “The book that I like reading is the Last Kids on Earth series by Max Brailler. It’s a book about monster zombies and kids surviving the apocalypse”.

Thanks to Abdou, other pupils have now enjoyed this series too!

Azeem likes “ all the Roald Dahl books, also comic books, and books about football”.

Denis and Mahmod both enjoyed a book that they read in class The Housekeeper’s Lunch – “this book was really funny and great because the housekeeper couldn’t have his lunch because the crows ate it all”.

Faizan says “My favourite book is Five Famous Fairy Tales”, This is a superb choice, containing tales by Hans Anderson and brothers Grimm. Abdullah recommends history books, and he has read many history and other non-fiction titles.

Fatima says “my favourite book is Dork Diaries. I like to read them because they are fun to read”. This is a very popular choice

This dedicated Class is always up for a challenge, and successfully completed last year’s Glasgow Libraries Christmas Reading Challenge, receiving certificates to mark their outstanding achievement.

As an experiment, we also tried reading as a Book Group – our chosen titles were Under the Skin, by Cathy Macphail, and the Fastest Boy in the World, by Elizabeth Laird. However, we decided that we preferred reading our own choice of books (although we do still like to have quiet discussion and share ideas together).

Miss Kindness, Librarian says “It has been a pleasure to see how this class have grown in enthusiasm and confidence over the past two years. I look forward to more fun projects and reading challenges with them”.

We would all like to say a big thank you to Miss Belton for all her patience, and enthusiasm, and for making the time for us to go to the library.

We hope you have a wonderful retirement and enjoy more time to read books and have new adventures.”.

End of the year post!

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You might have noticed that I have been a bit quiet on the old blog front lately. I have been busy trying to devise the weird and wonderful ways in which I can continue to provide a service to you in times of social distancing.

As we well know, things are not set in stone and everything is subject to change. However, assuming that we are sticking to our current plans, then the library will look slightly different for a little while.

Firstly, we will need to provide you with books remotely. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to browse books in the way you used to. On the plus side, everyone will be able to request any books or authors they want and if you let me know what sort of books you enjoy reading then I can do all the work for you and find something I’ll think you enjoy! These will likely be done on a class to class basis and I can even also bring your requested books down to you. Any individual requests can be made by emailing me directly: gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk

We will also be further promoting our online services to you throughout the year. The good news is that we now have Borrowbox and Freegal on your school iPads and we are hoping to have more by August! You can access any of the eLibrary features here: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/home. To access them, all you need is your library card number (the D00… one above the barcode) and your PIN (I can provide that! Just let me know).

Events might also look different but we will work with everyone to make sure that we can still bring you some excellent author events throughout the year, regardless of what restrictions may or may not be in place!

As for clubs, namely the Manga Club, we will need to have a look at where we are in August but it is my sincerest hope that we can get any clubs or groups back up and running as soon as possible.

Finally, I would like to again take an opportunity to thank all the pupils and staff at St. Andrew’s for making me feel welcome and part of the team in my first school year. It has been a challenging year and next year looks set to come with its own challenges but we will get through it and can look forward to a Library Grand Re-Opening party when everyone is allowed to visit the library again.

Enjoy your summer break everyone. You’ve definitely earned it!

Pride month

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Happy Pride month to everyone!

To celebrate, this month’s post will be about how the school LGBT+ club and the library have worked together to create a more inclusive space.

The first step was looking at a very inclusive library (and one of Ms Spaltro’s favourite): the Glasgow Women Library. In October Ms McMillan, the librarian and the LGBT+ club visited the GWL guided by the archivist, Nicola Maksymuik and one of the volunteers, May. We saw unique material and art works; but also discussed equality and respect. Very actual, isn’t it? A new hobby was also discovered: badge making! So loved by everyone that Ms McMillan bought a badge maker for our school as well.

This event – and a Glasgow school librarians training – has encouraged us to fill our library with rainbow flags labels. After a library assistants meeting, it was decided to stick a rainbow flag on the spine of every LGBT+ friendly book in the library, to help every reader to find books with LGBT+ themes. It took months to be ready, but the success was immediate. A handful of pupils from the LGBT+ club became our book reviewers: they have been in charge of reading the new books and identifying if they were LGBT+ friendly and suggesting them to the other pupils. Some titles? Giant Days by John Allison, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta.

February is the LGBT+ history month and has meant for our assistant lots of debates while they have prepared an amazing book display with a rainbow flag donated by the drama department. Not to forget the brilliant badges and informative material that the Creative Industries class has produced and distributed across the school.

The cherry on the top of the cake has been the brilliant event with Dean Atta thanks to the Wee Write! festival. Meanwhile the library team was working on a more inclusive space; Mr Beaton’s S2 class took part in Words that burn project (check the previous post) and Dean Atta was one of the authors involved. The librarian was so impressed that when the opportunity came up, Ms Spaltro wanted the pupils to meet him. Our LGBT+ readers made sure that every pupil who was going to take part in the event had read the Black Flamingo and prior to the event we chatted about the book for weeks. After having listened to the author’s presentation, we discussed coming out, families, integration and Drag Queens. It has been absolutely stunning to see the pupils so engaged and informed. So proud of them and thanks a lot to the Wee Write! Festival team and of course Dean Atta for inspiring us all.

What’s next?

Keep having these bookish conversations that encourage events and activities, keep hosting inspiring authors and support every library user to feel confident and welcome in the library. Last but not least, we are working hard to achieve a bronze LGBT+ chart for our school!

For the events pictures, please check our twitter account: @KsSchoolLibrary

Fàilte gu Bloga Leabharlainn Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu!

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Welcome to the Glasgow Gaelic School library blog page! I will be using this blog to keep everyone up to date with the goings on with the library whilst we are in lock down and without a physical library (and beyond).

Firstly, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would like to draw everyone’s attention again to the Glasgow Libraries eLibrary feature which pupils can access using the number on the back of their library card and their PIN. I can provide both so please get in touch with me at gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk if you need either. It is a great service and gives you access to a range of features including books, magazines, audiobooks and music. Here’s the link to the main page.

Secondly, the Glasgow School Librarians have gotten together and compiled a Lockdown Reading list for your enjoyment! There are some good reads in here for adults and young people alike. It can be found here.

Finally, I would like to take another opportunity to thank all of the pupils and staff at the school for making me feel most welcome in my first few months here and I hope we can continue to improve the library and its services into the next school year!

EAL Event at Springburn

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Springburn Academy Library recently hosted an event in partnership with Skills Development Scotland which provided information for EAL pupils, parents and guardians on their post school options. The EAL department at Springburn has identified that pupils from overseas, including asylum seekers and refugees, do not have the same access to opportunities as everyone else, often due to legal and financial constraints.

Much of the information and advice given to them needs to be tailored to their circumstances.

There were several speakers, including the school’s EAL Teacher, Graham Park, who opened the event, and Stephen Coyle, Careers Coach, who explained the SDS service offer to pupils. Graham Thomson from Glasgow Kelvin College, covered the various learning pathways offered by the Further Education sector, and his colleague Norma Stewart, described the ESOL programmes and the application process. Shukrya Addow of SDS delivered a presentation on the benefits of undertaking Foundation, Graduate and Modern Apprenticeships. She was followed by Paula Blair from the University of Glasgow, who discussed the university application process and widening access to Higher Education. Ian Maclellan of the University of Strathclyde, discussed their Asylum Seeker Scholarship Fund, and Angeline Mwafulirwa spoke about how she benefited from the Fund and her subsequent career path. The final speaker was Alan Reekie of SDS, who touched on funding issues and the eligibility criteria for learning opportunities for asylum seekers, refugees, EU citizens and international students.

Interpreters supported the event and the languages covered included Arabic, Portuguese, Mandarin and Urdu.

St. Andrew’s February Round-Up

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February has seen a little ‘re-jigging’ of the library lay-out. We have moved our Shelf Help section to the front of the library, making it easier to spot and more accessible for young people and hopefully encourage them to reach out to our excellent selection of literature dealing with mental health issues and exam stress.

In its old spot, we have set up a ‘Gaming and Coding Corner’ which includes game guides, computer game-inspired fiction and various books on coding and programming. Not only will this provide a clear resource for those interested, it also gives yours truly a chance to discover more about what makes our young people tick with regards to games and coding. For this section, I got some of our lunchtime crew to pick out images of their favourite computer games characters to go on the wall.

This month also marks LGBT+ History month and we have set up a small display at the front of the library to mark this, complete with both fiction and non-fiction material covering LGBT themes. Its important that young people from all walks of life feel welcome in the library and that the diversity within the school is reflected as much as possible in the libraries’ resources.

March will most likely see a weekly, or bi-weekly, update as there will be a lot to cover! Next week we will be welcoming Neil Slorance and John Wagner to the library as part of the Wee Write! Festival as well as World Book Day on the 5th. Furthermore, Amnesty International’s Words That Burn poetry project will be kicking off in St. Andrew’s from the 11th!

St. Andrew’s Library Returns!

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After a rather uneventful couple of weeks due to the prelims, the library at St. Andrew’s is back up and running in its full glory! It has been a busy week but it was great to see everyone back using the library again.

During the prelims I ran a ‘Mobile Library’ system in which I visited some classes with a selection of books for them to borrow. The system was such a resounding success that one of our Drama teachers, Mrs. Little, asked if we could make it a permanent fixture for the Safe Space she operates from her classroom Wednesdays after school. This gives pupils who are struggling with social anxiety issues a chance to benefit from the services that the school library provides in a more ambient and relaxed environment.

Wednesday also saw the return of our Manga Club which we are hoping to branch out from being primarily a drawing class, to include games, videos and discussion. I have also been giving the club first dibs on new arrivals!

In other news, on Thursday we had renowned author Kwame Alexander visit the school. This was organised by our Literacy department but it was a pleasure to be there and Kwame’s talk for the S2 pupils was excellent. I was sure to stock up on plenty of extra copies of some of Kwame’s books in preparation. I’m glad I did too as his books have been flying off the shelves since!

There are many more exciting things to come over the next couple of months so watch this space!

Book Week Scotland @ St. Andrew’s

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As Book Week Scotland comes to a close, my first as a school librarian, I can safely say that the week has been a great success and a lot of fun. All week we have been running a book swap station where staff and pupils have been encouraged to bring in old books in return for new ones. We also had a BWS Manga Club Special with the young people designing their own Manga book covers.

However, the highlight was definitely the Reading Lunch on Thursday, run along with our PT of Literacy. The turnout was excellent and it was great to see so many young people and staff come along with their books, ready to discuss them over a spot of lunch.